


Hanlon's Razor

by TheNarator



Series: Fractals [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Brotp: Quickvibe, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Harry being a creep, Jesse and Cisco being bros, Kidnapping, Not Canon Compliant, Stalking, Ugh, and it pains me that i have to add that tag at this point, background snowstorm, past hartmon, this is basically a fix fic now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 16:22:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6016276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNarator/pseuds/TheNarator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.</p><p>The one where Vibe defeats Zoom intending to immediately retire from superhero work, and finds out that being a superhero is never that simple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Enter: Vibe

**Author's Note:**

> this is not strictly speaking set on earth-2, but it is more similar to earth-2 than earth-1, and follows a similar-though-not-identical timeline.

The trickiest part, really, was balancing “enough witnesses to convince the press” with “no civilian casualties.”

He needed this fight to be extremely public, but the last thing he needed was for anyone to get killed, so he had to set the scene carefully. He settled on the early morning first of all: fewer people out on the streets, relatively low probability that anyone but him would be bringing their A-game, and plenty of time for the six o’clock news to get its story straight. Perhaps a little optimistically he picked a Friday, specifically the one preceding the last weekend before the Metahuman Awareness Apps hit the market. The announcement press conference had been held that Monday, and the Apps would be on sale the following week. He was cutting it a little close maybe, but he wanted this event fresh in people’s minds when they went to the store to look at Dr. Wells’ overpriced gizmos.

As for the venue? Well, what was good enough for the Flash was good enough for Vibe. The plaza outside STAR Labs it was then.

This had the added benefit of absolutely no one giving a second look to an oddly-dressed kid setting up some kind of strange looking machine in the middle of the plaza. It  _was_  a bit over-designed -- it only had to emit a low-level sound wave after all, and it was nearly as big as he was -- but he needed it to be immediately apparent to his quarry exactly what was making that god awful noise that had so rudely awoken it. To anyone else it would merely be an unsightly pile of metal and wires, hardly out of place in the vicinity around STAR Labs.

Ornamental trees and bushes also provided plenty of cover, so he hid himself on the edge of the plaza with the remote control for his lure. Once he was fully hidden he took a few deep breaths before switching on the device; it was likely he would only have moments once it was active, but the wait might just as easily be much longer. He’d have liked to give this a few more tests, but that press conference had placed him squarely in Do or Die time. It was now or never.

From the safety of the bushes Vibe switched on the Sonic Lure, and immediately it began broadcasting a sound too high for the human ear to perceive but at  _just_  the right frequency to meet the natural vibrating frequency of a certain speedster head-on.

Like a dog to a whistle, Zoom came.

As expected he went straight for the Sonic Lure and smashed it to smithereens. Then he stopped to examine the pieces, likely wondering what the hell they’d once been for. Despite the fact that his face was completely hidden, Vibe could almost convince himself that the speed demon actually looked grumpy, like he’d just been pulled out of bed. After a few seconds people on the nearby walkways and a few early-bird scientists looking out of the lab’s windows began to notice, and Zoom looked up at the first sound of screams.

That was Vibe’s cue to strike. He popped up out of the bushes and aimed a blast at Zoom, which the speedster barely avoided. Vibe extricated himself from the shrubbery as gracefully as he could under Zoom’s curious gaze, but finally they both stood in the open, facing one another.

“ **Who are you?** ” Zoom wanted to know, and  _goodness_  was his voice ever low and gravely.

“I’m Vibe,” he answered, and counted it his first small victory that his voice didn’t even shake despite the unusual way he was vibrating his vocal cords. “I feel it’s only fair that I give you the option of giving up now, even though guys like you never take it. Still, offer’s on the table.”

In the blink of an eye Zoom was suddenly holding him up by the throat.

“Yeah,” Vibe choked, “didn’t think so.”

Before Zoom could do anything as unpleasant as sinking his claws in somewhere uncomfortable, Vibe let loose his next vibration blast directly against Zoom’s chest. This both knocked Zoom back and forced him to drop the hero he’d been throttling, so he and Vibe both ended up landing on their asses. Vibe coughed as he staggered to his feet, and was gratified to see that beside him Zoom was doing the same with no more coordination than he could manage.

Maybe it was dumb, but Vibe gave Zoom a moment to adjust to not having superspeed, out of deference to what a strange experience it must be for him. Being brought back to Earth after being a virtual god reigning over Central City had to be an unpleasant bump, but phone cameras were already flashing from the windows in the upper stories of the lab, and however not-fun it was this was no time to be recommending a therapist. Vibe rushed at Zoom, hitting him the stomach and forcing him back a few steps, back towards the center of the plaza.

They traded blows, which really shouldn’t have gone on as long as they did given the size difference between opponents. Zoom was a lot bigger, but he was used to also being  _faster,_  and so having to adjust to using his broad shoulders and thick arms as an advantage against a quicker opponent took some effort. Eventually though, size won out, and Zoom pinned Vibe to the pavement.

“ **Neat trick** ,” he growled. “ **How did you do it?** ”

“Oh you know,” Vibe said in a strained voice, “just superpowers rock-paper-scissors.”

He landed another vibration blast directly against Zoom’s abdomen, forcing the speed demon up and off him. Vibe rolled away, gasping from the weight that had been lifted off his chest, then rose to his knees the moment he righted himself. Zoom was already struggling back to his feet, and for a moment they just stared at each other, both of them waiting for the other to make a move.

Then, Zoom fled.

“Hey!” called Vibe indignantly as Zoom made a break for the nearest street. It was very strange, watching him run like a normal person, but that only meant he wasn’t  _nearly_  fast enough to evade the vibration blast aimed at his back. He fell forward and hit the ground with a heavy  _thud_ , and what might have been the sound of skull bone meeting pavement with far more force than was probably safe.

He lay motionless as Vibe regained his footing and ran to the pile of debris from the broken Lure. Amid the smashed up pieces was one slightly more durable than the others, a circular device covered in bleepy lights. Vibe pulled it open via a previously invisible seam, and ran to Zoom’s unconscious body with it. He fastened the device around Zoom’s neck and it locked in place with an audible click, then Vibe straightened and stood over the fallen supervillain.

“You!” Vibe called, pointing at a young woman in a lab coat on a nearby pathway, with her phone out recording the fight. “Call the cops!”

The police, when they arrived, were rather confused to be arresting Zoom, but with the collar he was quite harmless. They were even more surprised to find the conquering hero waiting for them at the scene, accustomed as they were to the Flash always having somewhere else to be as soon as a fight was over. They tried to ask questions -- obviously, they were cops -- including the name of their apparent savior, but Vibe simply told them his name was not important and cut off all other lines of questioning with instructions for a cell to contain Zoom in Iron Heights. He had schematics.

After that, further questions were met a small flashbomb and a disappearing superhero.

He almost,  _almost_  got away. He supposed it was really too much to ask that his plan would go off without at least a tiny little hitch, but to do a perfect routine and then flub the landing was still a little disappointing. Even a small time gymnast would by crying right about now. He managed to get to the alley two streets away where he’d left his stuff entirely undetected, and after leaning against a wall and hyperventilating with giddy relief for a few minutes he was just starting to change back into his street clothes when he heard it.

“So, Vibe?” came a soft, female voice from behind him.

Cisco Ramon -- or rather Vibe once again -- gave an undignified little shriek, jabbing himself in the eye as he hurried to put his goggles back on before she saw his face.

“Sorry,” laughed the girl behind him as he whirled to face her. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

It was Harrison Wells’ daughter, Jesse.

Because of-fucking-course it was.

“Don’t sneak up on people like that!” he snapped, and Jesse jolted a little, looking taken aback. Clearly she had been expecting the Flash’s public persona, the calm and even-tempered universal father figure who rescued puppies from trees and fondly tussled schoolchildren’s hair.

Vibe was not the fucking Flash.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded, clutching at his racing heart. Honestly, he was more afraid of her than Zoom.  _She_  might do actual damage.

“I . . . I wanted to meet you,” Jesse told him in obvious confusion. “I mean you . . . you just saved Central City.”

“This isn’t a goddamn meet-and-greet chiquitita!” Vibe hissed. “I just got done taking out the most powerful-” well, second most powerful, “-supervillain in the city: I’m exhausted, my nerves are shot and my powers are hella unstable right now!”

Jesse looked mortified, blushing scarlet but with real worry in her eyes, and Vibe heaved a sigh. She might be born of Wells’ demon spawn, but she’d never hurt anyone as far as he knew, and clearly he’d made her concerned for his health.

“I just need to sit down,” Vibe told her more gently, rubbing his temples. His goggle were starting to make his head ache. This always happened when he wore them for too long continuously, but he’d stupidly made them his only means of hiding his identity.

“We should go back to STAR Labs,” Jesse offered, in what she probably imagined was a helpful way. “You can rest, I’ll see if I can-”

“No,” Vibe cut her off, firmly but trying not to raise his voice. “I’m not going to STAR Labs.  _You_  are going back . . . wherever the hell you came from, and  _I_  am going home.”

Jesse paused, narrowing her eyes at him. There, he thought, was the Harrison Wells in her, as she fixed him with a calculating look. He felt unpleasantly like he was being dissected, like she was cutting him open to examine him with her sharp, piercing gaze.

He knew she’d worked it out when she reached for his goggles.

“Hey!” he protested, shoving her hand away. “Those aren’t just for show you know, they have a purpose.”

“You don’t want me to see your face,” Jesse concluded.

“I didn’t want you to see  _any_  of me,” Vibe hedged. The line of questioning she was leading toward was not one he was prepared for.

Still, he had to admire the way Jesse cut straight through his bullshit. “Why don’t you want me to see your face?”

“Because I’d rather not have my identity be public knowledge,” Vibe explained curtly. “I don’t need a bunch of reporters, fans and the odd supervillain knocking down my door at all hours.”

“It’s going to come out eventually,” Jesse warned him. “Just ask the Flash-”

“I’m not the fucking Flash!” Cisco snapped, and oh god that was  _his_  voice, not Vibe’s. He coughed and tried again.

“I’m not the Flash,” Vibe told her firmly. “I’m not a part time scientist, part time superhero okay? This was a one-time thing.”

“What!” Jesse demanded, as though he’d personally offended her somehow. “But, you  _are_  a superhero! You just beat Zoom, how can you stop now?”

“Listen kid-” Vibe began, but Jesse cut him off.

“I’m in college,” she protested, scowling, as though that should mean something about her level of maturity.

“Whatever,” Vibe huffed, “look, taking out one bad guy does not mean signing up for a permanent gig, okay? Not every metahuman in Central City can be a superhero.”

That had sort of been the  _point_ , but apparently that hadn’t come across.

“You can’t just give up,” Jesse insisted.

“Can’t give up on something you never intended to do in the first place,” Vibe pointed out, then held up a hand when Jesse made to protest again. “Look, I’m tired, okay? Whatever other superhero work needs doing it doesn’t need doing right this second, so do you  _mind_  if I go home and rest?”

Jesse pouted, glaring at him, but she could hardly refuse. She left in the direction of her father’s lab, and once she was out of sight Cisco hurriedly changed back into his street clothes, stuck his goggles in his pocket and shoved all his hair up under a hat. He wanted to get back to his lab before the city exploded with the news that Zoom was gone like Munchkin Land after Dorothy’s grand entrance.

He still had 50 more Cloakpins to finish by tomorrow.


	2. No Good Deed

Of course the city did inevitably explode with the news, and then with celebration, so by the time that Cisco Ramon, Ordinary Citizen and Definitely Not a Metahuman, made his way home he had to navigate around at least a dozen impromptu block parties. As nice as it was to be so widely celebrated he knew his fight wasn’t over yet. It wouldn’t be over every metahuman in Central City, barring the ones in Iron Heights, was safe.

Still, significant progress had been made, and he was nearly finished making enough Cloakpins for everyone, so he arrived back home bone-tired but pleasantly satisfied.

The first feeling ebbed and the second abandoned him entirely when he noticed a light coming out from underneath his apartment door.

Cisco had a lot of bad habits, but he was always careful with his lights; his electric bill was high enough without leaving things on while he was out. Someone was definitely in there. He thought about drawing out the Vibe goggles, possibly seeing whoever had broken into his apartment, but he dismissed the idea. He didn’t have any real enemies, at least ones that weren’t in police custody. It was probably just a burglar. A truly unfortunate burglar.

Pulling out his phone in case he needed to call the cops, he crept silently up to his own front door. He tried the knob and found it unlocked, then pushed it slowly open, wincing as it creaked slightly. There wasn’t much to his apartment: a kitchenette off to the right of the door, a small dining table past that and the rest of the space between there and the far wall taken up by the living room, with a hallway off of there that led to the bedroom and bathroom. In that small space it was easy to spot his intruder.

It was Harrison Wells.

Who had apparently brought food.

“Ah!” said Wells excitedly, beckoning him inside without getting up from where he was seating at the dining table. “The man of the hour!”

“You’re breaking and entering,” Cisco informed him, stepping inside and kicking the door shut behind him. He dumped his bag on the floor, then nudged it into the kitchenette far enough that any attempt to grab it from the doorway would be obvious.

His lack of enthusiasm didn’t deter Wells. “Technically not breaking,” he pointed out cheerfully. “I picked the lock.”

“Why am I not surprised you don’t know anything about the law?” Cisco asked wearily. “No, that’s still breaking and entering.”

Wells shrugged, as though that didn’t trouble him in the slightest. “I come bearing gifts,” he reasoned, indicating the Mexican take-out covering the table in front of him. The table seated four. There was quite a bit of food.

“Why are you here?” Cisco demanded, glowering as fiercely as he could manage.

Apparently not fiercely enough. “Sit down,” Wells invited -- in  _his house_ \-- gesturing to the empty chair across from him. “Eat, you must be starving. I got Mexican, is that racist?”

“A little,” Cisco told him, not moving an inch, “and you didn’t answer my question.”

Harrison sighed theatrically, which probably would have been more effective if he could stop grinning for two seconds. “I have a proposition for you,” he explained, opening up a container of fajitas. “Sit down and we can talk about-”

“The answer’s no,” Cisco cut him off.

“Is that any way to talk to your boss?” Wells asked, raising an eyebrow in a way that was just  _insufferably_  patronizing. He bit into a fajita, then gave a ridiculously exaggerated noise of pleasure, gesturing at the still mostly full container.

Cisco struggled with the impulse to actually flip the table. After a deep breath as he tried not to choke on all the things he  _wanted_  to say, he finally settled on, “I work for myself. I don’t have a boss, because I don’t have a job.”

“You do now,” Wells informed him, with absolutely no shame whatsoever, then swallowed his mouthful of fajita. “You work for me, as the new lead engineer of STAR Labs.”

Cisco laughed, the sound forced so abruptly out of him by sheer indignation that it sounded high and hysterical. “What?”

“I saw your plans for the speedster containment cell,” Wells told him, setting down his food and wiping his mouth with a napkin, “and you left the device you used to attract Zoom on my doorstep. In pieces, of course, but the sophistication of the design was apparent even from those.”

“It’s a toy,” Cisco scoffed.

“It’s brilliant,” Wells countered, and it would be a lie to say there wasn’t something oddly thrilling in that. “You’re brilliant. I only hire brilliant people and no one on my staff is as brilliant as you. I’m not in the habit of letting intellects of your caliber go without making use of them.”

It was that phrasing, about ‘making use’ of people, that brought Cisco back to reality and extinguished the warm glow of pleasure curling in his belly at being praise by Harrison Wells himself. He could  _not_  let himself forget that this man was dangerous.

“How do you know that was my work?” Cisco shrugged, fully prepared to blame all this on Hartley if it would make Wells go away. “Could be someone else’s.”

Wells smiled and shook his head, waggling his finger as though Cisco were a naughty child. “I’ve been looking into you all day,” he explained. “You're a 16 year old runaway even though you pretend to be older, and you’re unemployed because you support yourself fixing absolutely anything that requires a power source to work, from cars to computers. You sell your work for a fraction of what it’s worth because your customers don’t have the money to pay you, which is why you’re living in a rat hole despite being a certifiable genius.”

Cisco swallowed. That was a scary amount of information to have gathered in an afternoon, and never had he been so thankful that he’d had the forethought to put his lab somewhere more secure than his living space.

He forced a small, unconcerned laugh that was entirely unconvincing. “You found someone on this street willing to talk to a stranger?”

“People are very cooperative when they stand to make $100 with 30 seconds of their time,” Wells explained.

Cisco shook his head, sneering in distaste. “There is not enough money in the world to make me work for you.”

“Oh I think there is,” said Wells, smiling knowingly.

“There really isn’t,” Cisco countered, his smile more of a rictus.

“You don’t seem to like me very much,” Wells observed, tilting his head to the side curiously and somehow still managing to sound utterly smug.

“What was your first clue?” Cisco asked dryly.

“Why?” Wells wanted to know.

“Gee,” Cisco rolled his eyes, “I’m a metahuman living in Central City, what possible reason could I have for not liking you?”

For the first time in this entire encounter Wells looked less than pleased. “I see,” he said tersely, “so I am to be haunted by the Flash’s baseless conjectures at the press conference for the foreseeable future, am I?”

Cisco swallowed his correction, knowing that the less Wells knew about him the better. Instead he said, “The Flash is a hero.”

“Less of a hero in two years than you proved yourself before breakfast,” Wells huffed dismissively. “Hardly what Central City needs.”

Cisco’s eyes narrowed. “So that’s your game.”

“What?” Wells asked, genuinely perplexed, but Cisco was breathless with rage. He was shaking with it.

“You don’t want a lead engineer,” he spat, acrid bile crawling up his throat as he fought to keep his temper. “You want a  _pet superhero_ , one who can take out the Flash for you if he gets to be too much trouble.”

Wells seemed to realize that he was treading dangerous ground. “Cisco,” he began, using that name for the first time, making an obvious effort to be as soothing as possible. “Now, don’t think that’s the only reason-”

“Don’t tell me what to think!” Cisco snarled, and he was surprised not to hear the dishes rattling in the cabinets. He was angry at Wells for being a bastard, and angry at himself for being drawn in by it, and angry at Wells for making him angry at himself. “Get out of my house!”

“I’m only trying to help you,” Wells lied, blatantly  _lied_. “If you'll just listen to what I'm offering-”

With all his concentration focused on keeping his powers in check, Cisco had had enough. He stalked over to the dining table and grabbed the edge, then threw it to one side with an almighty shove, spilling bad take-out all over the floor.

“Get out!” Cisco roared, and finally Wells leaped to his feet. He tried to go through the kitchenette but Cisco growled and put himself in the way, so Wells was forced to go the other way around, which afforded far less opportunity to pretend to trip over Cisco’s bag.

After Wells had fled, pulling the door closed behind him with a loud bang, Cisco stood in the middle of his apartment for a few long moments, breathing deeply. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t known this would be a trying day, but he thought maybe he’d get at least 24 hours to bask in the glory of beating Zoom before the universe decided to knock him down a peg. Still, there was work to be done, and he needed food and sleep before he would be in any condition to do more of it.

With a weary, long-suffering sigh, Cisco began to clean up the Mexican take-out.

***

The next day Cisco woke bright and early, ate a very quick breakfast of dry cereal while trying to ignore the heady smell of meat and spices coming from his trash can, then raced to his lab to finish the last handful of Cloakpins before Ronnie arrived to pick them up.

“Nice,” Ronnie pronounced, picking up one that was concealed inside an ordinary wristwatch to examine it. “You can’t even tell.”

“With any luck no one ever will,” Cisco reminded him, taking the watch and putting it back in the open-top cardboard box. There were five boxes, one for each of the meetings Ronnie had set up.

The power to immediately see every time someone broke the laws of physics was particularly useful for locating closeted metahumans. It wasn’t a perfect system, especially given that the majority of them preferred to use their powers either for small things only or not at all, but then there was always someone who knew someone who knew someone until they had quite the little network going. It was easier once they figured out how the process of becoming a metahuman worked, and sometimes they were even able to find new ones before their powers even emerged, so after two years of dedicated work Cisco, Caitlin, Ronnie and Stein pretty much had this shit on lock.

The larger circle of metahumans, such as it was, had sort of come to look up to them. Ronnie in particular, whether he was merged with Stein or not, was definitely  _the_  pillar of the community, so it wasn’t hard for him to basically call a handful of all-metahumans town meetings to discuss the Metahuman Awareness Apps. Everyone was pretty freaked out by them; there were a lot of anti-metahuman sentiments in Central City, and most of them knew perfectly well that they would be jobless and homeless if it ever came out what they were. Cisco and Caitlin had been pretty hard at work the last two years making chemical or mechanical blockers for people with powers that were more difficult to control, but the Apps wouldn’t care you didn’t or even couldn’t use your powers. And neither would the rest of Central City.

So, the task fell to Caitlin and Cisco once again to find a way around them. A chemical blocker, some kind of vaccine maybe, would be difficult to concoct when they didn’t know what criteria the Apps were using to define ‘metahuman,’ so something to jam their frequency was deemed more efficient.

Hence, the Cloakpin Devices.

Cisco hid them in anything: keychains, watches, phone cases, bits of jewelry, anything and everything someone could have with them at all times without attracting suspicion. Everybody chipped in what they could for materials until he had enough to make 200 and change, enough for every metahuman in the city. Ronnie called a few more meetings and now here they were, distributing get out of jail free cards a full two days before the cops even showed up.

“It’s just a stopgap measure you know,” Ronnie reminded them as they folded up the empty boxes from the last meeting. “This isn’t going to end until the rest of the city stops hating metas.”

“We are all aware of that, Ronald,” Stein told him, holding open the lid of the dumpster so that Ronnie could shove the boxes in, “but curing the ills of society is a little beyond the scope of a few mere scientists.”

“Wells thinks he can do it,” Cisco huffed. He held the last few unused Cloakpins in one hand: three keychains, a hair clip and a cheap heart-shaped necklace.

“And I suppose we should all be very grateful he’s wrong,” Stein pointed out.

They had all gone in full secret-identity regalia -- most people did to these things -- so Ronnie and Stein just re-merged to fly home. They were only a few blocks from Cisco's apartment though, plenty close enough for him to walk; he could climb up to his window via the fire escape in the alley so that no one would see his suit, then maybe check if the news was still covering the story of Zoom’s capture. He had a suspicion that they probably were.

Whatever the news was doing, he was planning on spending the rest of the weekend vegging out in front of the TV, eating  _good_  Mexican take-out, and not thinking about superheroes or supervillains for as long as he could manage.

What he wasn’t planning on was the Flash rolling up on him two streets from his apartment.

Cisco had never met the Crimson Comet in person before, but it wasn’t as if he didn’t have a few expectations. The grand entrance was definitely there: a streak of gold lightning and rush of wind that blew every loose object on the deserted street around. After that though, it kind of fell flat. He didn’t come to a stop posing like a statue, with his arms folded and a stern expression on his face; in fact he was sort of hiding, with his body halfway around the corner into the nearby alleyway. He looked at Cisco, or rather Vibe, dubiously, like he wasn’t sure what to make of him, and the longer he stood there the more alarmed he looked.

After a few seconds of near-perfect silence, the Flash stepped out fully into the street. “How old are you, kid?” he asked, sounding just a little horrified.

“I’m 22!” Vibe lied. Just because Harrison Wells knew his real age didn’t mean the whole city needed to.

“Well I’m 35,” said the Flash flatly, “but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t that small in my early 20s.”

“You’re 6′2″ asshole,” Vibe snapped, “the last time you were my size you were in kindergarten.”

“I’m 6′4″ actually,” Flash corrected off-handedly, “you wanna tell me how old you really are?”

“Okay I’m 19,” Vibe conceded.

Flash raised an eyebrow. “Try again.”

“Fine!” Vibe snapped, “I’m 16 okay, I’m an emancipated minor. What do you want from me?”

“Well first I wanna know if you have a place to live,” Flash demanded, looking even more horrified than before.

“I have a place,” Vibe informed him coldly, then forged ahead quickly when Flash opened his mouth to respond, “and it’s not under a bridge, thank you. I have an apartment.”

“In what part of town?” Flash asked dubiously.

“This one, obviously,” Vibe scoffed.

The Flash opened his mouth, then closed it again, studying Vibe carefully. “Guess it’s not really that dangerous for you, is it?” he said after a moment, and the set of his shoulders relaxed just a little. He rubbed the back of his neck, looking a bit lost.

Vibe puffed out a breath tiredly. “Look, thanks for your concern, okay?” he asked most gently. “It’s nice that you worried about me, but it’s really not necessary.”

“You’re going into a dangerous line of work, kid,” Flash pointed out. “Don’t you think it would be a good idea to have some backup?”

Vibe blinked. “What?”

“You did good work in that fight with Zoom,” he began, strolling carelessly forward, farther out of the shadows, “but not every fight is going to be like that. You got to set the stage that time, but there will be times when you get caught off guard.”

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Vibe cut him off, raising both hands, then dropping them hastily when Flash jerked back in alarm. “Are you saying you . . . you  _want_  me to do the superhero thing? You’re not, like, threatened or whatever?”

Flash shrugged. “Why would I be threatened?” he asked nonchalantly. “We’re on the same team, aren’t we? I can help-”

“No,” Vibe said firmly, backing up when Flash tried to step closer again, “nuh uh, no way. That fight with Zoom was a one-time deal, I am _not_  signing up to be a superhero full-time.”

Now it was the Flash’s turn to blink dumbly in confusion. “What?” he asked, after a few moments spent digesting that piece of information.

“Like I said, your concern isn’t necessary,” Vibe repeated. “I’m not putting myself in any more danger, so you can keep eagle-scouting it up without worrying about little ol’ me.”

“You sure?” Flash wondered, looking concerned. “I  _can_  help you know, if you’re-”

“Not interested,” Vibe assured him.

Flash paused, then shrugged. “Alright,” he said, and Vibe’s hair was abruptly blown back as lightning illuminated the street as the Flash made his exit. Almost immediately though he was back, standing before Vibe and holding out a small piece of paper. On it was written the Flash’s name -- his real name, Jay Garrick -- along with a phone number.

“Call me if you need anything,” he instructed as Vibe took the paper.

“That’s it?” Vibe asked. “You’re not gonna give me a speech or a lecture or whatever it is adults do when teenagers make choices on their own?”

“I’m not your dad,” the Flash -- Jay -- reminded him. “This isn’t a job you can do for anyone’s reasons but your own. It’s your call to make, no one can make it for you.”

“Thanks,” said Vibe, staring at the piece of paper, then when Jay nodded decisively he held out a hand. “Wait!” he said hurriedly, then quickly pulled the Vibe goggles from his face. “It’s, uh, Cisco, by the way.”

Jay smiled, that bright, movie star smile that had all of Central City at his feet. “Nice to meet you Cisco,” he replied, “I’m Jay. Call me if you need anything.”

***

_The buzz from Zoom’s defeat and Vibe’s debut hadn’t died down in the slightest by Monday. Central City was raving about its newest superhero, with theories flying in all directions and every news source out hunting for him in order to be the first to print his name and a decent photo. Already there was speculation about whether Vibe and the Flash would be a super team or an epic rivalry, and Jay Garrick was being hounded for comments he wouldn’t give. It was pandemonium, but for the first time in two years it was a good pandemonium._

_Good pandemonium was bad for business._

_The sales of the Metahuman Awareness Apps were much lower than projected. They were meant to create a sense of safety, but Vibe had already done that three days ago, and it would be some time before everyone remembered the danger they were in even without Zoom on the streets. Still, the Apps did sell, and before day’s end they had spread over the city like a net, their sensors overlapping until nearly all of Central City was being searched for metas._

_The data from those Apps was then collected via the STAR Labs satellite, and uploaded directly to Dr. Harrison Wells’ personal computer. It revealed absolutely nothing._

_According to those Apps there was not a single metahuman in Central City that wasn’t either in Iron Heights or hidden in the cracks between the sensors, secreted away in corners where few respectable people ventured. The Flash kept popping up on his radar, obviously, but he was the only meta that was consistently being sensed. There was no one else._

_Harrison didn’t buy that for a second._

_It was improbable beyond comprehension that every single metahuman in Central City was either a criminal or the Crimson Comet. There were more of them, Harrison knew there were more of them, but somehow they were hiding from the sensors. Someone, somewhere, had found a way to hide them._

_He could hazard a guess as to who that someone might be._


	3. What's Worth Doing Once

It was somewhere between hilarious and morbidly fascinating, just how obsessed the city was with him after only one appearance. A very distinctive appearance, obviously, but an hour spent in the public eye, tops. The news couldn’t shut up about him, the blogosphere was blowing up, and the wild speculation about his identity, his abilities and future career as a superhero were getting increasingly more bizarre. The leading theory at this point was that he was some kind of time traveler from the future, returning through history to replace the Flash as Central City’s hero.

If this was what it was like to be Central City’s hero, Cisco couldn’t have envied the Flash less.

Monday marked the completion of Zoom’s cell in Iron Heights. The collar had held him up to that point and would for some time yet, and Cisco had advised them to leave it on until the power dropped so low that Zoom could remove it himself by brute force. It shouldn’t take more than another day or two, now that the cell was built and he had been transferred into it, but the more safety measures where Zoom was concerned, the better. The transfer was conducted on live television, to tumultuous cheering, and Cisco went to bed Monday night feeling perfectly content with life.

Zoom was gone. The Cloakpins were working. All was well.

Then, Caitlin called him at five o’clock Tuesday morning.

“Turn on your TV,” she commanded, and Cisco hurried to comply, stumbling out of bed and into the living room in his pajamas.

He tuned in to the middle of a news broadcast.

“ _-Central City police out in full force looking for the escaped speedster_ ,” said the reporter on screen, and Cisco’s stomach dropped. “ _There is still no word as to how Zoom managed to get past the specialized cell created by Central City’s newest hero, the courageous and tech-savvy Vibe, but the Chief of Police has scheduled a press conference for later this afternoon. Dr. Harrison Wells, who was attacked by Zoom during the escape, was unavailable for comment._ ”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Cisco roared, then remembered he was still on the phone with Cait. “Sorry, just, seriously?”

“Seriously,” said Caitlin sympathetically. “Could he have exploited a flaw in the design? You didn’t have much time to-”

“There’s no flaw,” Cisco assured her angrily, stomping back to his bedroom, “it uses the same tech as the collar and the collar worked. The cell had five fail-safes, including the ability to withstand a week-long power outage; no way it caves after less than 24 hours.”

“What are you saying?” Cait asked, sounding scared.

“I’m saying if that thing went offline, it’s because someone shut it off,” Cisco explained, pulling clothes out of his closet: street clothes to put on and his Vibe gear to stick in a duffle bag. Once again he was reminded of that compressed microtech ring he’d been planning to build for the Flash, and how much something like that would come in handy while trying to avoid looking like he was up to something.

“Who would do a thing like that?” Caitlin demanded. “ _Everyone_  hates Zoom! The only people you could call his allies only worked with him because they were afraid of him! Who would want to let him out?”

“Someone who’s selling something,” Cisco told her.

After getting off the phone with Caitlin, Cisco pulled out his computer and googled ‘metahuman awareness app sales.’ As expected, the first article that popped up was about how they’d failed to meet projected sales rates. There was only one person in Central City who stood to gain from Zoom’s freedom: Harrison Wells.

Still, that didn’t matter right now. He had to build another Sonic Lure. It was time to go fishing.

***

He couldn't very well use the plaza outside STAR Labs again, so this time he opted for a deserted street toward the edge of the city limits. Once people saw him setting the lure up in the middle of the road, fear for their lives outweighed their desire to shake his hand; they knew what he was doing and they wanted him to do it more than they wanted to thank him for it.

It was a bit of a stretch to think that Zoom would hear the lure all the way out here, but doubtless he would be looking for Vibe. He didn’t expect he’d have to wait very long.

Surprisingly, he had to wait pretty long. Staring down at the street from where he had hidden on a rooftop, feeling the gentle vibrations of the lure buzzing as though with anticipation against his skin, the minutes ticked by into hours until he’d been lying there most of the day. Sunset found him hungry, tired, and cramped beyond belief, as he'd been too afraid to move in case he gave his position away just as Zoom arrived on the scene. He’d been wearing his Vibe googles for way too long, and his head was pounding. Even if Zoom did come, he was in no fit state to fight.

At long last Vibe switched the goggles off (a new feature he’d added after his last fight) but left them perched on his nose as he climbed down the fire escape. He’d have to come up with a new plan, maybe swallow his worry for Caitlin’s nerves and ask for Firestorm’s help. Turning off the Sonic Lure felt like defeat, but he supposed it was too much to ask to catch Zoom with the same trick twice. That was some Hartley Rathaway levels of egotism right there.

Because his goggles were off, and because he was thinking about Hartley, and because he was sore and tired and hungry and more dejected than afraid, his only warning before Zoom came up behind him was a faint smell of ozone in the air.

Just before he lost consciousness his only thought was,  _Fuck Harrison Wells._

***

Waking up in an unfamiliar place would have been bad enough without the headache. It would have been bad enough without being sore, and hungry, and not at all well-rested. It would have been bad enough without being chained to the ceiling of some kind of cage, his hands encased in weird metal boxes and his fingers somehow restrained within those.

All of these things would have been bad enough on their own, but combined as they were it was enough to make Vibe return to consciousness with a pained and frustrated screech.

“You have got to be kidding me!” he growled, getting his feet planted on the floor instead of hanging limply so he could yank on the chains that bound him. All that succeeded in doing was creating a flare of pain in his wrists.

“Nope,” said a high, familiar voice off to his right, and Vibe jerked around to see Jesse Wells, bleeding slightly from a cut on her temple and covered in a thin layer of dust, sitting on the floor and leaning against the bars of their shared cage.

“The hell are you doing here?" Vibe wanted to know.

Jesse gave a weak, guilty smile. “Rescuing you?”

“Oh my god,” Vibe groaned, letting his head loll back in exasperation. “ _How_  did you think you were going to rescue me? How did you know I  _needed_  rescuing?"

“I was following you,” Jesse informed him without a hint of shame, as though this were the most normal thing in the world. “When Zoom came at you from behind I tried to stall him, but . . .”

“Let me guess,” Vibe snapped, “fighting an evil speed demon from hell is a lot harder than it looks?”

“You don’t have to get snippy,” Jesse said sulkily. “I was only trying to help.”

“Oh yeah?” Vibe challenged. “Is that what you were doing when you went running to daddy and told him all about me? Trying to help?”

“I didn’t see anything wrong with it,” Jesse harrumphed. “He’s my dad. I tell him stuff. People need to know-”

“People don’t need to know  _shit_  about my private life!” Vibe cut her off. “He went looking for me, mija. He broke into my house!”

Jesse looked taken aback. “He did that?”

“Yeah!” Vibe told her. “He paid my neighbors to tell him stuff about me, looked into my records. Just like  _you_ were apparently  _following_  me!”

Jesse had the decency to look ashamed of herself. “I didn’t know he was going to do that.”

“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but your dad has seriously boundary issues,” Vibe huffed. “Do you even have a lock on your door?”

“I don’t live at home,” Jesse informed him curtly.

Vibe frowned. “You’re like 16 though.”

“So are you!” Jesse shot back.

Vibe opened his mouth to correct her that he was 20, but then he realized her father probably would have told her about him, so he settled for glaring at her.

“It wasn’t your secret to tell,” he chastised her sourly.

“It should never have been a secret in the first place,” Jesse argued. “You deserve credit for this!”

“But I don’t want it!” Cisco shouted, too angry to care that it was his voice and not Vibe’s. “You don’t get to decide that! I get to decide!”

Jesse reared back, looking frightened. At first Cisco thought he must have done something with his powers to alarm her, but then she covered her mouth with one hand, her eyes glassy with unshed tears. She blinked them back, but suddenly she couldn’t look at him, and instead let her eyes drop to the floor, looking broken and ashamed.

Vibe -- Cisco -- swallowed hard. “I didn’t mean to shout,” he said, in his normal voice, “but it’s my life. It’s my choice, to do this or not do this, to tell people or not tell them. I choose to be normal, most of the time. That’s my decision to make, not yours and not anyone else’s.”

Jesse sniffed. “I was just trying to help,” she said quietly.

“I know,” Cisco told her gently. “So help me figure a way out of this cage, smart girl.”

“Can’t you use your powers?” she asked, dashing at her eyes with the heels of her palms.

Cisco shook his head. “I can’t direct it,” he explained, “not with my hands like this. Theoretically I could generate and release them in any direction using any part of my body, but I’ve never tried anywhere else and with you in the way this is probably not the best place to practice.”

“You could try your center of gravity,” she suggested, “not in any direction, just outward from your chest. If I lay flat on the floor it should pass right over me, and it’ll break the bars.”

“Worth a shot,” Cisco conceded after a moment's hesitation, and Jesse flattened herself to the dirty floor.

Cisco closed his eyes and took a deep breath, concentrating on his heartbeat. The rhythm of its pulsing generated a vibration that was felt through his body, in every part of him, and as he focused that vibration grew stronger. It was no longer just the flexing and contracting of a muscle in his chest but a buzzing, a humming, a thrumming like a plucked string in the very core of his being. It beat against the walls of his rib cage like an earthquake beneath his skin, and he held it tightly in as it built, compounded, grew stronger and stronger. Then with a great whooshing breath he let it out, let the vibration spill forward in all the directions, radiating out like a ripple from that place inside his chest.

The bars of the cage creaked, bent, and held strong.

“Damn it!” Vibe swore, kicking uselessly at the ground.

“Try again,” Jesse insisted. “You did  _something_ , maybe if you do it again you’ll-”

“No, no,” Cisco shook his head, “I don’t have the energy. I need more stimulation, a sense of . . . urgency.”

“Any moment now a speed demon from hell might be coming to kill us,” Jesse said flatly. “How much more urgency do you need?”

"He's not going to kill us," Cisco reassured her wearily, "if he kidnapped us he needs us for something. He probably wants me to tell him how I took his speed, and if I don't he'll torture you until I do."

Jesse didn't look particularly reassured.

Cisco sighed. His head was already throbbing in pain, and he knew this would only make it worse, but they didn’t have a lot of options right now.

“The goggles,” he said, steeling himself against what came next, “there’s a little switch on the right side, near the corner of the lens. That turns them on.”

“What do they do?” Jesse asked interestedly as she got to her feet. She leaned in close to examine them better.

“They . . . help,” Cisco told her, “it’s hard to explain but they give me what I need to do this better. Just turn them on and get down again.”

Jesse nodded, then flicked the switch on the side of the goggles and dropped immediately to the floor.

Cisco actually cried out as the pain in his head was multiplied by the stimulation from the goggles, like someone had taken a hammer to his skull. He didn’t need to concentrate this time, he felt the power humming through him right away, and with a grunt of effort he pushed it forcefully out of his chest and all around him like a full 360 tidal wave.

The bars of the cage shrieked in protest, but bent and then eventually broke under the onslaught.

The back of the cage was fastened to the wall, so it was really only three sides that had been blown wide open. The roof was still attached, though wobbling dangerously, and for a moment Cisco just hung there, breathing deeply as the pounding in his head settled back into a less violent throbbing. When he blinked his eyes open even the dim light was painful, and it took him a moment to realize what was missing.

His shades had come off.

With as much effort as he’d been putting into using his powers he hadn’t even heard them fall to the floor. He was still hanging helplessly by his wrists, but now his face was completely exposed. His eyes slid down to Jesse, who was staring at him in shock and indecision, like she wasn’t sure what to do next.

Cisco closed his eyes against the painful light. “Oh it’s not like you couldn’t have figured out what I look like anyway,” he huffed, “go find some keys for these cuffs.”


	4. The Reason

“My dad won’t tell, you know,” Jesse assured him as they made their way toward STAR Labs. Cisco didn’t want her wandering around the city alone having recently escaped from Zoom, and he wasn’t really looking forward to walking anywhere without her supporting him. He needed to sleep for about a week to recover from this.

Cisco scoffed. “I find that conclusion highly suspect.”

“It’s true!” she insisted. “What the Flash said about him at the press conference . . . that’s true too, yes, but he’s not  _bad._  He’s just . . . proud.”

“Proud enough to put the whole city at risk,” Cisco finished the thought she had been unwilling to see to its conclusion. “Yeah, doesn’t sound like a supervillain at all.”

“He’s definitely made some bad choices,” Jesse agreed, actually  _agreed_ , which Cisco was surprised at. “He lied to me too.”

Cisco paused, thinking for a moment. “People who are untrustworthy find it hard to trust others,” he said at last.

“Which is your way of saying that you don’t trust him with the information that he already has and you’re certainly not going to come into STAR Labs to get treatment,” Jesse concluded resignedly.

“It’s not a hospital,” Cisco pointed out. “I’ll be fine.”

“Not if you get kidnapped again!” Jesse protested. “Zoom’s still out there, and I think it’s safe to say he’s still pretty ticked off. It’s only a matter of time before he comes after you.”

“Yeah, well, I beat him once and I’ll beat him again,” Cisco told her, knowing perfectly well he wasn’t the least bit convincing.

“What about next time?” Jesse wanted to know. “And the time after that? If Zoom keeps getting out you’re going to need allies-”

“I have friends,” Cisco cut her off. Screw Stein’s insistence that he was no superhero, Cisco was  _going_  to ask Ronnie for help. Caitlin would understand.

“Not friends who can contain Zoom!” Jesse argued. “My dad can-”

“ _I_  can contain Zoom!” Cisco snapped, pushing away from her to stand on his own. “All I need is for people to quit letting him out!”

Jesse paused, staring at him in disbelief. “You think . . . someone released him?” she breathed. “How . . . why . . . who would  _do_  a thing like that?”

Cisco bit his lip, wondering how much to tell her. She wasn’t stupid, and so far it didn’t seem like she’d drunk the kool-aid either. She knew her dad had done bad things, and she knew he wasn’t sorry.  _She_ , on the other hand, wanted to do better.

“Someone whose anti-metahuman tech got a lot less popular since the scariest meta in Central City wound up behind bars?” Cisco guessed pointedly.

Jesse stared at him for a moment, expression hard and closed-off. Cisco fully expected her to turn around and march back to STAR Labs -- it was only two streets away, he would let her -- but instead she shook her head, glaring at him.

“No,” she said firmly, “you’re wrong.”

Cisco opened his mouth to  _gently_  argue, but-

“You’re wrong!” Jesse cut him off, louder but with surprising control. “My dad would never do that. He cares about this city.”

Cisco considered her for a moment. A thought was forming in the back of his head, and he let it grow until it was something of a plan. It was a risk, yes, but Jesse had thrown herself in the path of a raging speedster to try and buy him time to counterattack. He wouldn’t have made it out of Zoom’s cage without her. She deserved more than this.

Cisco held out his hand. “Can I show you something?”

Tentatively, Jesse took it.

***

Showing up at Ronnie’s door with Jesse Wells, daughter of The Man Who Fucked Their Lives Up, in tow went over surprisingly better than he’d thought it would.

“Uh,” said Ronnie, eyeing Jesse in shock and mild fear, “Cisco can I talk to you for a second?”

“I offered to bring her here Ronnie,” Cisco clarified, “she didn’t ask, no one’s coming behind us, her dad doesn’t know she’s here.”

“You’re sure about all that?” Ronnie asked dubiously.

“Given that she just rescued me from Zoom’s lair and I haven’t let her out my sight since then,” Cisco explained, “yeah I’m pretty sure. We want to talk to Cait.”

Ronnie continued to look between Cisco and Jesse for a few moments, then opened the door to let them into his and Caitlin’s apartment.

Two engaged college students surviving on little more than grants, loans and generous gifts from Ronnie’s headmate couldn’t afford much of a place, but it was clean and warm and the power didn’t go out every time a train went by on the skyrail overhead. Ronnie ushered them through the living room and around the corner where the door to the one bedroom stood ajar, revealing the mess of medical equipment inside.

Nestled amidst the medical equipment was Caitlin, lying on the bed covered by about a million blankets and hooked up to an IV. Wires protruding from under the covers suggested more than one electric blanket, and the four or five space heaters all running at once  _should_  have made the room unbearably hot. However, the room itself was only vaguely warm, owing to the fact that most of the heat was being consumed by preventing the frost already creeping along the headboard from going any farther.

“She’s a metahuman,” Jesse breathed, taking in the frost, the white hair and the alien eyes Caitlin blinked open when they entered.

“Her name’s Caitlin,” Ronnie said sourly, but Cisco held up a hand.

“It’s okay,” he said, “guys this is Jesse Wells; Jesse these are my friends Ronnie and Caitlin.”

“Hello,” said Jesse uncertainly, looking between Ronnie and Cait. “It’s, uh, nice to meet you.”

“Hi,” said Caitlin quietly, and at her soft smile Ronnie relaxed considerably.

“They’re both in college right now,” Cisco continued, “like you. Ronnie’s going to be a structural engineer, and Cait’s going to be a doctor.”

“Although I take most of my classes online these days,” Caitlin said, gesturing demonstrative to herself.

“How did this happen?” Jesse asked delicately.

Cait and Ronnie looked at each other. “It’s, uh, my powers,” Caitlin explained carefully, “I can’t really control them. If I don’t keep them in check they’ll spread, hurt people. Hurt me.”

Ronnie nodded at the IV bag. “That stuff in there? That’s basically antifreeze. It stops her body from just freezing solid. Turning to ice.”

“You’re the one who stops me from turning to ice,” Caitlin joked, and Ronnie laughed, leaning over to kiss her softly.

Jesse looked at Cisco in confusion. “Ronnie runs a little hot,” Cisco explained. “Caitlin probably could take the edge of her powers by using them deliberately, but that would mean freezing half the city solid at this point. Not something she’s going to do. For now she relies on Ronnie and his powers to keep her stable.”

“I’ll never stop,” Ronnie promised, kissing Cait’s hand.

Caitlin giggled. “I know you won’t.”

As Caitlin and Ronnie continued to be almost disgustingly cute, Cisco took Jesse’s arm and drew her out in to the hallway.

“If anyone knew that Caitlin and Ronnie were metahumans they’d lose their scholarships,” Cisco told her. “They’d lose this place; their landlord hates metas. Cait wouldn’t be able to afford the . . . pretty dangerous concoction of chemicals that keeps her powers from killing her.”

“This,” Jesse whispered, looking like she was on the verge of tears, “did my father know about this?”

“I have no idea,” Cisco said truthfully, “but I do know that he didn’t bother to find out. At the press conference he said that most metahumans had chosen the wrong path; how many do you think there are in the city?”

Jesse shrugged. “Thirty, give or take.”

“Try upwards of two hundred,” Cisco corrected.

Jesse looked absolutely horrified. “Two hundred?” she said in disbelief.

“And change,” Cisco confirmed. “Most of them just like Ronnie and Cait, just trying to keep their heads down and not use their powers at all. Or, trying not to let their powers kill them.”

“This can’t be happening,” Jesse shook her head, looking back at the doorway where Caitlin and Ronnie were still clearly visible, talking quietly together.

“It is,” Cisco confirmed, “and this secrecy, this masquerade of normalcy that keeps us from losing everything,  _this_  is what your dad’s metahuman apps would have destroyed.”

“But they didn’t,” Jesse realized, looking back at Cisco in wonderment, “because you stopped people from buying them when you stopped Zoom.”

“I did a few other things,” Cisco corrected. “I built a device that I blocks the detectors, but it’s only a temporary fix. We need to get past people’s fear, make them see that metahumans aren’t just divided into Bad Guys and the Flash.”

“That’s why you decided to become Vibe,” Jesse concluded. “To make people less afraid.”

“PR is everything,” Cisco sighed, and Jesse let out a hollow, mirthless little laugh. “Just ask the Flash.”

“The Flash,” said Jesse suddenly, eyes wide, and she grabbed the front of Cisco’s shirt with one hand. “Yes, the Flash! The Flash can help us defeat Zoom!”

“Us?” Cisco asked, perplexed.

“Yes us!” Jesse snapped excitedly. “I’m not just gonna leave you to deal with this on your own. My family created this mess, we’re responsible.”

“Your dad doesn’t see it that way,” Cisco pointed out.

“My dad’s an idiot,” Jesse waved that away.

“As evidence by the fact that he freed Zoom the first time,” Cisco said dryly, “and there’s nothing stopping him from doing it again.”

“So you build something else,” Jesse said, as though this were the most obvious thing in the world. She avoided mentioning whether she was granting his premise about her father’s guilt in that event, and Cisco let her. “Build something that can’t be shut off that easily.”

“Like what?” Cisco wondered.

“Something that’s not around him, but inside him,” Jesse explained. “An implant of some kind. Maybe something that will attach to his spine? Paralyze him, or at least his speed?”

Cisco thought for a moment. A device that attached to Zoom’s spine would still have to be entirely external, unless they got him unconscious and then immediately into surgery. Something smaller however . . .

“I think I have an idea,” he said slowly, “and just the guy to help with it. That is, if the Flash doesn’t mind making a quick trip to Starling City.”

“Great!” said Jesse, grinning broadly. “Now we just need to get in contact with the Flash without Zoom knowing, and-”

“Don’t worry, I have his number,” Cisco informed her smugly.

Jesse gaped at him. “You have the Flash’s phone number?”

“Oh yeah,” said Cisco nonchalantly. “We’re superheroes, we network. Just asked the Arrow.”

“You know the Starling City Arrow?!”


	5. Strength in Numbers

_Annoyed as he was at being taken down by an infant, and as determined as he was to make that child pay, Zoom just couldn’t resist a fight with the Flash._

_When the Crimson Comet crossed his path, daring him to test his speed with the very fact of its existence, Zoom gave chase as he always must. They raced, neck and neck through the city, two streaks of different colored lightning as though God himself refused to let them be confused with one another. There was only one Flash. There was only one Zoom._

_One day soon, there would be only one speedster._

_Perhaps the day would be sooner than planned, Zoom thought when the Flash tripped. He stumbled to a halt in a dead-end alley on a seedier side of the city, sprawled on the ground, his helmet sliding away across the uneven pavement. He flipped over, crawling backwards as Zoom advanced on him at a walk, his eyes defiant even now._

_“ **It seems this is goodbye, Flash** ,” Zoom growled, raising one clawed hand.  
_

_Then a voice cut through his focus, high and raspy like the hum of bee wings, unnatural and all too chillingly familiar._

_“That’s what you think!”_

***

Zoom tried to get away, obviously. Vibe blasted over and over, careful to send them always over the Flash’s head, but Zoom kept dodging left or right out of his way. Vibe stood between Zoom and his escape, and Zoom was wary of getting too close to him, but it was only a matter of time before the speed demon took his shot and tried to go around. Vibe couldn’t cover the entire mouth of the alley at once.

Except that he could.

As Zoom stood, momentarily paralyzed with indecision, Vibe focused on his heartbeat once again. Reaching deep inside to pluck the string at the core of his being, he flung his arms wide and let the ripple race out of him, washing over the alley and hitting Zoom square in the chest.

“ **No!** ” the ex-speedster roared, looking down at his clawed hands in dismay. Then he looked up, growling, and fixed his murderous gaze on Vibe.

Before he could do anything else Vibe stepped aside, to reveal Jesse Wells holding a big fucking gun.

“Surprise!” she said cheerfully, and shot Zoom in the chest.

Zoom dropped to his knees, then to all fours. His breath came in growling rasps, like a dying bear or big cat, and he trembled violently as the contents of Jesse's dart completely overcame him.

“That weird buzzing you’re feeling is the vibrating nanites spreading through your body,” Vibe explained, as Zoom continued to shake. “They’ve vibrating at a frequency perfectly countering your own, meaning that as long as they’re in your system, you’re constantly getting hit with the same vibrations I used to take your speed.”

“Nicely done, both of you,” Jay congratulated them, standing up and brushing himself off.

“It was a group effort,” said Jesse casually, although the effect was somewhat spoiled by the fact that she couldn’t stop beaming.

***

This time, Vibe escorted Zoom to Iron Heights personally.

“I’ve never been so conflicted about a prisoner,” the warden confessed as the Flash put Zoom inside anti-speedster cells, then zipped out so that Vibe could activate it. It wasn’t broken; someone had definitely shut it off. “If he’s here that means he’s my problem, but if he'd be a much bigger problem if he was out there.”

“We leave him in your capable hands,” Flash said graciously.

“Just don’t let anyone else in to mess with the containment unit, okay?” Vibe instructed.

“Hey,” the warden displayed his palms, “no one touches it on my watch, that’s a guarantee, but I thought you said his speed was gone for good?”

“Better safe than sorry,” Jesse pointed out, the warden could only wholeheartedly agree.

“So you’re sure you’re not up for the whole full-time superhero thing?” Jesse asked Vibe as they made their way out. “You’re pretty good at it.”

“So are you,” Vibe pointed out.

Jesse scoffed. “I’m not a metahuman though.”

“For now,” said Vibe cryptically as they reached the front entrance.

Before Jesse could ask what he meant by that, an alarm started shrieking.

“What’s that?” Flash demanded, looking around quickly. “Is there a containment breach?”

“No, no, it’s okay,” the guard seated at the front desk laughed, “you guys just set off the metahuman detector.”

The three of them looked up, to see the unmistakable chrome exterior of a STAR Labs Metahuman Awareness App fixed above the door frame, a faint red light pulsing from within.

“That’s new,” Flash noted, still looking a bit pale.

“Just got it upgraded this morning,” the guard said cheerfully, feet up and munching on a doughnut as a TV played in the background. “Couple of STAR Labs boys came down to give it a tune-up, free of charge if you can imagine that.”

“No,” Cisco breathed, looking horrified.

“What?” Jesse whispered, leaning in close at the sound of his normal voice. “What is it?”

“I’m wearing a Cloakpin,” Cisco hissed, “that thing shouldn’t be able to pick us up! It shouldn’t be working at all, unless . . .”

Cisco trailed off as an awful thought blossomed in his mind, as terrifying as Zoom’s escape and twice as potentially disastrous.

“You were right,” he told Jesse shakily, “your dad didn’t come here to free Zoom. He came here to study the containment cell, and he shut it off by accident.”

“What does that have to do with the detector?” Jay wanted to know, leaning in to whisper to the two of them.

“I used the same frequency to jam the Apps’ sensors that I did for the containment unit,” Cisco explained. “He was studying my tech to see if he could figure out a way around the Cloakpins!”

“Oh god,” Jesse breathed, “Ronnie! The others!”

“I have to call him,” Cisco said, trying to fumble his phone from his pocket, “we need to call a meeting,  _now_. We need to-”

"Hey," Jay's voice cut through his panic, as the older hero bent to grab his shoulders and hold him still. "Calm down. Do you know how to fix this?"

Cisco nodded. "I just need to adjust the frequency."

"Shouldn't we have this conversation somewhere else?" Jesse wondered, glancing around the lobby of the prison with some trepidation. 

"Tell me where to go," Jay instructed Cisco, "I'll get us there, then you can show me how to adjust the devices. If you let me help I can have it done in less than an hour."

Cisco opened his mouth to tell Jay where his lab was, but just then the TV behind the front desk went to very noisy static, and then dead silence.

“ _Hello Central City_ ,” said a voice from the TV, and Cisco whirled to face it, blood running cold as he recognized that familiar lilting drawl.

The monitor displayed the lower half of a pale, freckled face, the eyes and most of the prominent features obscured by a dark hood.

_“You may not recognize me,”_  said the achingly familiar voice,  _“but you all owe me a debt. And now? Now it’s time to pay the Piper.”_

“Who the hell is that?” Jesse wanted to know, staring at the screen in confusion and alarm.

“His name is Hartley Rathaway,” Cisco spat, “and he’s my ex-boyfriend.”

Vibe turned to the Flash with a look of grim determination. "And if you want to stop him from enacting his revenge on Central City, you're going to need my help."


End file.
